North Country Aviation
 

Curious if anyone has any experience or knowledge with some Michigan operators. Right now I have my instrument rating and building time to 250 right now for my commercial. Intend to CFI to build hours, but still intrested in local operators and any information regarding the Michigan area. Short term goal is to get my CFI and instruct. Long term goal would be to fly charter part-time somewhere locally. Currently stable family life with stable job. Grand Air Aviation, North Country Aviation, Air Services...???? Any comments appreciated. Thanks

Best bet would be to go and introduce yourself to any and all FBO's in your area. I would do anything you can and introduce yourself to ALOT of people. Aviation is a small community and even smaller when your talking ma and pa FBO's so word of mouth will beat emailing your app in.

Hi!

North Country Aviation is pretty decent. I knew some guys that flew there, and they seemed to like it.

Grand Air? Is that the Grand Aire that became Tri-Coastal? I thought they were out of business? If they are still flying, you don't want to do that.

cliff
YIP

NC has some nice planes, I worked for a competitor that sorta took a bunch of their work(the customer wasn't happy with some cancellations on the nightly routes). Besides that I know they have some C310's, barons, C421, and I think a King-Air. I never heard any complaints about Mx from their pilots, seemed to be a good outfit with that in mind.

I don't know too much about Central Air except those guys worked hard! I honestly wouldn't want to fly a twin-commander in the winter, but that's just me.

Pontiac Flight Service in PTK is one that if you get your CFI, you can work for them, and also sit right-seat in the C421's and Be20's part time. I think you need to be more of a full-timer for that position though.

My company has a salesmen up @ GRR, and occasionally we need ferry pilots, but this is extremely limited flying up there, and usually turbine equipment, so restricting that flying even more to higher time pilots with time-in-type experience.

If you want to know more about Pontiac Flight Service send me a PM, I instructed there about 4 years ago, it's a great place to get some initial flying experience.

Hmm, I might or might not have ran into you. I was a Y47 instructor that did the occasional SIC stuff over there.

Really, send me a pm, how often did you sic at pfs?

Three of my very close friends flew at North Country and all left with very bad tastes in their mouth, that was their experience, not mine. All of them flew there for close to 2 years. I'd say Pontiac Flight Service is much more reasonable to work with as an employee, you're treated pretty well there and everyone is flexible to work with, an awesome boss/owner as well.

From what I hear ASI in Traverse is the place to be if you want to be in Northern Michigan.

North Country is a good place to work for low time pilots, but Gaylord can be a tough place to spend free time. Nick and Mary are great people and will give you the time if you show up with a resume. They are looking for long term people that are willing to stay for a couple of years, but end up needing copilots all the time. You will spend more money driving to work then you will make but it's better then paying for the time. Training is all on your own if you can even find a manual. They did do check runs at night and they would allow you to ride along to gain experience.
Air Services is in a better location but you will not get in without internal references and a lot of time. The pilots are tight knit group and is hard to break into.

actually Grand Air Aviation I was speaking off is actually a smaller operation out of Abrams Airport 4DO Michigan. Thanks for everyones responses. Keep it comin :0)

IFL group out of KPTK is hiring. They are getting more Falcon 20's. I used to work there not a bad operation. Everyone is really nice, the falcons they have currently are the best in the industry but I dont know how the new ones they are going to get are going to be. On call 24/7....20 min to get to airport. Its listed on climbto350.com .

Agreed, Chip runs a good ship. I don't agree with everything, but people get some great experience there.


Jon C? If you're who I think you are you got plenty of YIP-BKL trips with me.:cool:

The same Jon C indeed.... Being a freight dog is much more fun then pushing buttons in a crj-900 like I am now. But I have a job so its not that bad.

If Grand disastAire is still in business, avoid them like the plauge.

They are the only certificated carrier in the history of US aviation to have two unrelated crashes on the same day.

They had a nasty habit of killing pilots and ducking fuel bills.

As far as I know they reincarnated a while back calling themselves tri-coastal and tri-coastal went under back at the beginning of the year.

North Country has 2 be-58s, 2 c-310s, 2 c-421s, 2 king air e-90s, 1 king air be-20 and a westwind, also North Country manages and provides pilot services on an additional e-90 king air and a PAY1. In the summer months part time copilot positions could be availible to a lower time pilot.

The one thing I can say to this is that when you do three go arounds and don't give a "Minimum Fuel Advisory"....that's just stupid.


Actually, Grand Aire is still in business, just as an "Indirect Air Carrier" What happend was they were going to bring two Lear 24D's online but it just didn't happen as quick as they wanted it and decided to call it quits for now with the Tri-Coastal part of the company. They even started repainting them and dang, they looked as sharp as IFL's DA20's.

I had seen the Tricoastal Falcons this year in Laredo, I had heard they were trying to get some Lears operating a while back and that they were looking for some Lear pilots, too bad it couldn't have gotten going faster for them.

Don't expect many unscheduled 135 operators to be hiring till maybe after the summer 2009. If you have a job, be happy and stick it out.

IFL is on climbto350 looking for F/O's on the pretty falcons. I flew those, they are veryyyyyy nice. I'm at XJ now and we are hiring like crazy, but i think XJ and Colgan are the only people hiring 121.

What are the minimums for IFL right now?

They are sitting on IFL's ramp ;)

who is XJ? Sorry about my lack of knowledge

Where are those Falcons coming from? I know multiple people that are typed and have applied and have not gotten a call. Maybe they are waiting on a specific date to close the job opening.

Grand Aire

Its better that they did not get them, they are still the same with there flight ops as they where flying under the Grand Scare name. The only thing holding them above water is the brokering department and the FBO. My best advice....stay away..far away. I knew two people who died flying there junk!

I don't think they are flying at all anymore, I remember they lost 2 falcons in one day and then their owner was killed in a Hansa Jet, pretty unfortunate.

No more N566YT, N326VW, and N258PE. Now it's N471FL, N461FL, N481FL. Man, I remember when I was dispatching the LR35 N536KN and the Metro's. Damn, what a ride.

Ilikeplanes2, are you guys repainting them?

And for the record. There is no more Tri-Coastal Air or Grand Aire. Eifle bought the Certificate to Tri-Coastal along with the remaining 3 Falcons.

Did you know Dave Davenport? He was a good guy!

Dave was a BAMF! He is missed very much.

I wouldn't be surprised to see them red white and blue before they leave the ramp.
What's the plans for the lear?

Jonny cakes you can always come back and throw boxes with the rest of us =) Well now you would going from SDF to Edmonton.

The Lear 35 is owned by Kalitta now. Dude, you gotta get me the pics once they are done and painted.

Yea one of them almost looks as good as ours but remember the difference between our Falcons and a run of the mill freighter Falcon is only about $3.5 million dollars each. LOL i know im a prick i just have to brag a little you just dont see equipment like ours used for freight. What can i say i take pride in my company and the equipment I have the privelage of "playing with" You can flame me I deserve it.:D

Or you mean not throw the boxes you dont touch them now UPS takes care of everything. You shoulda stuck around Jon without going into to much detail its a hell of a gig now. I always liked it even before the schd stuff but now it really is all gravy. I think you would have really enjoyed it man. ;) How is life at XJ?

Haha. Are you guys dumping the CF7's and putting TF3's on them??

Ha i wish there are no more kits avaliable. If someone else wants a garret powered freighter they have to buy a corporate one rip out the interior and put a door in. Not to many people out there willing to spend $5 million on a freighter, especially in todays market.

Hi!

Error in my previous post.

I was talking about "Trans North Aviation" and somehow got them mixed up with North Country. TNA is based in Eagle River, WI.

Sorry, I guess being laid off has scrambled my brain???!!!???

cliff
GRB

Mesaba is good. Yea I would have for sure liked it more the way it is now then when I was there but I'm happy at XJ. They treat me good, living 15 minutes from DTW and I get 1 1/2 hour call out so its cake even on reserve. The CRJ-900 keeps me on my toes, great airplane. Who knows when I'm 23 if I'm not close to upgrade I might start considering options. Shouldnt be a problem but 4 1/2 years and thousands of SIC hours might be my breaking point!

Anyone know before I contact them to see if they are hiring and what their minimums are if they are?